Rich and Strange / East of Shanghai (1931) | Presenting Hitchcock Podcast

Gooooood evening. In this months episode of Presenting Hitchcock, Cory and Aaron come into some money and blow it all on their discussion of “Rich and Strange” aka “East of Shanghai.”

The Picture:

Picture Title: Rich and Strange / East of Shanghai (1931)

Written by: Alfred Hitchcock with Alma Reville and Val Valentine

Based on the novel by Dale Collins

Starring: Henry Kendall, Joan Barry, Percy Marmont, Betty Amann, and Elsie Randolph

Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock

Opening Scene:

Our Favourite Trivia:

DIRECTOR CAMEO: Hitchcock told director and critic Peter Bogdanovich that the film contained an inventive cameo in which Fred and Emily meet the director and tell him their story, to which he replies, “No, I don’t think it’ll make a movie”. However, the scene is not in any known print, and it may have been just an invention.

Cameo sidenote: I suspect that Hitchcock is the weather announcer on the wireless at the end of the movie. I could be wrong, but the younger voice does have a bit of a Hitch inflection.

Hitchcock claimed Rich and Strange was inspired by his honeymoon with Alma Reville in 1926.  Hitch’s biographer, Donald Spoto, called it “one of his most openly autobiographical films”.

The title “Rich and Strange” comes from Ariel’s song in “The Tempest”: “Full fathom five thy father lies, / Of his bones are coral made, / Those are pearls that were his eyes: / Nothing of him that doth fade, / But doth suffer a sea-change / Into something rich and strange.”

Alfred Hitchcock once stated that although the movie wasn’t successful, it had one of the funniest scenes in which a Chinese sailor serves food to Fred and Emily, and they like it until they found out that the meat they were served was a cat.

The film’s lack of commercial and critical success is often attributed to the fact that there is dialogue for only about a quarter of the film, and that many features of silent films remain, including scene captions, exaggerated acting styles and heavy makeup. 

The Random Draw for Next Picture:

Next up, we’ll be discussing “Saboteur”

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